This spy/assassin actioner with MMA superstar Gina Carano is a star-studded, dingbat thrill in high-definition....
Lionsgate / 93 Minutes / 2012 / Rated R / Street Date: May 1, 2012
Steven Soderbergh sure knows how to keep them guessing. While readying his male stripper flick (Magic Mike) and putting the final touches on his Liberace biopic starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, he has given us a mixed martial arts actioner, an attempt to tell the tale of an ass-kicking chick and the government operative she serves. And while Haywire is ultimately a silly little lark of a film, Soderbergh nevertheless keeps things exciting.
Coming off the heels of Contagion, Soderbergh continues to prove here that his greatest asset as a filmmaker is his ability to both attract and uniquely utilize a grade-A cast. MMA superstar Gina Carano may not have exceptionally widespread familiarity in the lead role here, but have you heard of any of these guys?: Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton, Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor - for a one-off genre flick like this one, Soderbergh has completely jam-packed the thing with big-marquee talent.
Haywire's double- and triple-crossings feel familiar and almost redundant at points, but with Soderbergh's nausea-cam and Lem Dobbs' crackling screenplay, the film allows very little character exposition to get in the way of its action. After Mallory Kane (Carano) gets sabotaged while on a super-dangerous mission, she has to out-think the assassins who taught her to, well, be an assassin. You know the drill: She has no one to trust, she must set a deep trap that just might not work, and she's got to be on her toes and ready to kickbox twenty-four hours a day, just in case things go... you know....
There's not a lot of meat on the bone in Haywire, but it doesn't really matter much. A fair argument could be made that while Soderbergh may not know how to make the best action flicks in the world, in fits and spurts, his shoot-em-ups feel like great cinema, even if this response is fleeting. Haywire is dumb, loud, star-studded fun: It falls apart under any kind of serious scrutiny, but who need scrutiny in a movie featuring an MMA star and a bunch of guns?
